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London, July 2015.

Kamala conceals her bright eyes behind dark pink sunglasses as she treads cautiously under the cover of a crowded Central London, leading Phoenix and Aarden to Ziegler's lab from pained memories until they're lost in the twists and turns of narrow brick lined alleyways. London has changed too much in the last several years, or several hours, it's impossible to tell the difference in the paradox they find themselves in.

Kamala tries to retrace her steps from another timeline. When they first arrived to London hours earlier, searching for Quinn, all they found was Soraya Singh's empty but still in tact home. Aarden spent all of his time in Quinn's bedroom, careful not to touch anything but smiling to himself the entire time at the things she once described to him.

Now, they're wandering alone through a city they've been to before, but never as this version of themselves.

"His lab may not even be here anymore," Kamala says, finding it impossible to recall details from such panicked moments.

"Then why are we wasting our time looking for where his lab used to be?" Phoenix asks, pushing sunglasses up to his eyes, failing to blend into a crowd he towers over as he lights a cigarette with his adaptation.

"Because that incident never happened in this timeline," Aarden reminds him, taking the cigarette and tossing it into a trash receptacle.

"At least not yet," Kamala says, leading them down a familiar alleyway as summer showers fall over them, searching until she finds a rusted door hidden amongst blackened brick.

"There."

Aarden reaches into his jacket for a handful of metal picks, inserting one into the keyhole and wiggling it furiously, biting his tongue.

"What are you doing?" Kamala asks, standing behind him.

"Quinn taught me how to pick a lock."

Kamala blasts the door inward, the liquefied metal briefly illuminating the hall in a dim orange glow.

"Well, that's another way of doing it," Phoenix says, ushering them in.

He guides them down the narrow passageway with his burning mane, the ground becoming steeper as their surroundings grow darker. Eventually they reach a series of elevator doors far below the industrial noise above.

"Am I a terrible sibling?" Phoenix asks, his deep voice echoing off the cold walls as Kamala tries to pry the doors open to no avail.

"What are you talking about?" Kamala asks, "I'm sure anyone would agree we're pretty awful."

"Where's all this coming from?" Aarden asks, glaring at the Z insignia over the elevator doors, the same one he sees all over Axton's manor.

"I can't stop thinking about Indigo being so upset with me. I never stop to think about how my words and actions affect the ones I love. I have nothing left if I don't have you guys."

"Is this really a good time and place to be having this conversation?" Kamala asks hastily, "you had the entire flight here to ask this."

"We have no idea what this time and place even is, but you're right," Phoenix says, his voice low with defeat until his chest swells when Aarden pats his back as high as he can reach.

"I think you're fine the way you are, Phoenix, but we all have reflecting to do. I enjoy being around you. I'll miss you when you take off again," Aarden says.

Phoenix's heart sinks. In this version of events, he never ventured to Mexico after fighting Kyran in the garden. He never met Xochitl Solis, he never set foot on the scorching white sand beaches.

"It's starting to feel like we all died," the lion whispers.

"Then we have nothing else to lose, do we?" Kamala asks.

Aarden steps forward, pulling a handheld device from his coat pocket while gesturing at the elevator doors.

"May I? Or would you rather melt these sensitive electronics?"

Kamala's blue eyes shine in the near darkness as she glares angrily at him.

"Be my guest."

Aarden lifts the panel and connects his device, fidgeting with a green colored screen for a few tense moments before a beep resonates and the doors slide open.

The red panda turns to them, white hot determination in his emerald eyes.

"We still have something worth fighting for, a second chance to get this right. All we need is the cannon."

***

In a familiar narrow hallway with numbered doors made of heavy steel, Quinn presses her head against the concrete wall, staring upward into darkness to fight the intense claustrophobia running through her body. She tries to relax by focusing on a purple jacket she once thought was lost forever when her home was destroyed.

"It's like I took the place of someone else, and I'm living her life," Quinn says to herself, "or is this a dream?"

"It's a bit more complex than that," Aarden's soft-spoken voice echoes from behind the steel door.

A warm sense of relief floods Quinn. Using her adaptation, Kamala pulls the door backward, filling the small space with white light.

"If you're here, then we must be dead," Quinn says, embracing the red panda.

"You're welcome for the rescue, now let's get out of here," Aarden says, burying his long muzzle in her hair.

"I'm not leaving without her," Quinn says, racing to the opposite end of the cold hallway for the first time again.

"She's alive?" Kamala asks, chasing after her with the others. At the end of the hall, Quinn turns around, practically throwing herself onto the panther to hold her in a tight embrace.

"She is. Kamala, so much is different, what's happening?" She asks.

"It's going to take some time for me to explain that, so I'll explain that when we have some time," Aarden says, leading them back toward the elevator at the end of a maze of white corridors.

"I told you, I'm not leaving without her," Quinn insists as the silver elevator doors slide open before Aarden.

"Then wait for me, I'll go get her, and the cannon while I'm at it," Kamala says, promising to herself that if she faces Dietrich Ziegler in these depths, it will be the final time.

"I'm coming with you, mate," Quinn says.

Kamala glances at Phoenix for an answer. He's the only other original Zenith left. Zephyr is lost, Kyran and Indigo are dead, even if they stood right before her in the library.

"You're in safe hands, Quinn," the lion says, smiling.

"If we don't make it back, remember to meet Fletcher in the warehouse where she dropped us off. The same one from last time."

The lion shakes his head, his yellow mane flowing.

"If you're not up in ten, I'll come get you, even if I have to fight the whole way down."

Kamala hugs him, pressing the top of her head on his shoulder.

"Make it five," she says as she pushes him back into the elevator.

"Please be safe. If I lose you, that's everyone."

***

Kamala and Quinn sprint down the corridors until they make it into a freezing, sterile lab. There, hidden amongst the computers and equipment, a panther with onyx colored fur and flowing silver hair observes a vial of dark blood.

"Soraya!" Kamala yells out to her mother. Both panthers freeze in place as they glance into eyes they swore they would never see again, one from another time and one from another timeline.

"Given the strange things I've witnessed today, having you stand before me shouldn't surprise me. Yet, here we are. You grew up to be as beautiful as I imagined you'd be," Singh says, finding it impossible not to be in awe of her daughters radiance.

Kamala growls, her sharp teeth bared.

"The last time I saw you, you said I'd one day understand why you did the things you've done. But now I'm more confused than ever. Why would you work for someone like Ziegler, after all he's done?"

Singh's face turns, contempt in her expression.

"Are you naïve enough to believe there's two sides to all of this? Thaddeus Axton did this to you, not Dietrich Ziegler. Thaddeus turned you into a weapon and aimed you at his enemies, both deserving and undeserving. Ziegler wished to do the same with Quinn, so I gave myself to him instead, to save her. There are no heroes in this story Kamala, only two sides of the same coin, each branded with the same insignia."

It's Quinn who speaks up first.

"Please, come with us, I need you," Quinn says, too afraid to step forward, afraid she'll lose her again.

"It's not too late for you, you can still choose reason," Singh urges, placing her slender hand on an alarm.

"What are you talking about? Mom, we can't join him. In my time, in another day altogether, he killed you."

Tears fall from Singh's eyes as she blinks. "Was it worth it, was it to save the future?"

She takes a step back every time Quinn takes a step forward, her voice strangled.

"Nothing is worth losing you. Why are you saying these things?"

Singh holds her words behind pursed lips. "You've made your choice?"

"I was never given a choice, Mom."

Singh makes her choice, but Kamala is quicker than she is, launching her backward with a powerful burst of energy.

"Even though you're not the same version of Soraya Singh that I know, it still hurt to do that," Kamala says, tearing off Singh's keycard with her claws and handing it to a stunned Quinn.

"So, what Ziegler says is true," Singh says, clutching her aching chest, "you've broken the fabric of time, for what?"

"For you," Kamala says, gaining access into a neighboring stairwell to search for the cannon.

Stepping into darkness, Kamala fails to see the coyote lurking in the shadows. But he senses her immediately, savoring the way her sweet fragrance melts with the scent of fear in the cold air. He lunges, pinning Kamala against the wall the same way he did Indigo in the mountain base.

"With a perfume that alluring, I can find you anywhere in the city, kitten," Felix Blair says, pressing his long snout against her rose-colored hair.

"How many times have you died? At this point you're shooting for twice, or has the new Ziegler not told you his secrets yet?"

"The same way the rabbit deceived me with my own eyes, you're looking to do with my ears," the coyote barks. In the lab, Quinn shakes as she tries to find the words to say to Singh, oblivious to the commotion in the stairwell.

"What are you going to do, tear those off too?" Kamala responds.

The coyote strikes Kamala across the face. He then scratches his claws against the concrete wall in anticipation of slashing at her when Quinn kicks the door forward like a shield, striking him and sending him tumbling down the stairwell until the back of his head collides with the stone wall.

"I thought Aarden killed him, isn't that why Ziegler tried to kill him?"

"When does Ziegler ever need a reason. That is, was a version of him," Kamala says, rubbing her face and looking down to the steps below.

"Is he dead?" Quinn asks nervously.

"Dead, alive, none of that matters anymore, does it?" Kamala says as the stairwell is flooded with the high-pitched ringing of an alarm and red lights.

"Mom's made her choice," Quinn says, crestfallen.

"Now we make ours," Kamala says.

A howl from somewhere deep within the lab tells them the fight is far from over.

***

In the alleyway outside, Phoenix waits with Aarden. He counts the time in his head before Kamala and Quinn spill into the alleyway empty handed, terror in their wide eyes.

"Shut the door, shut the door!" Kamala shouts, pulling at the receptacles with her adaptation to seal the door, but Zephyr, in his massive werewolf form, tears through the brick wall itself, sniffing the air as sunlight falls on his face for the first time in years.

Kamala circles him cautiously, raising her hands, mimicking Singh from a non-existent time, trying to calm him the way she did.

"Did you find the cannon?" Aarden asks from behind Phoenix as he stands before him.

"Clearly we didn't. Zephyr, I know you're in there."

The werewolf bites at the air, nearly snapping onto one of Kamala's fingers with his long fangs. He howls into the air so loudly it forces them to cover their ears.

Kamala tries to calm him again, but the crowd of onlookers panics, sending Zephyr into a frenzy. He gives chase, forcing the group to retrace their steps toward the crowded London Underground.

Kamala's heart beats in her chest as they leap into a street of speeding cars. Halfway through the sea of pavement, she trips over herself, falling into the path of a swerving bus. Phoenix leaps forward to tackle her, shielding her in his wide embrace as the bus violently folds in on itself as it collides with a pink crystalline barrier.

"He's alive too," Kamala says, her eyes wide.

"We need to get away from here!" Phoenix yells, pulling at her wrist as she looks back, witnessing Zephyr mow through the survivors, splattering the street in hot crimson rain.

"So much for finding the cannon," Aarden says as they race down the stairwell and onto the crowded platform below.

"By the looks of it, Ziegler wasn't home anyway," Kamala says through rapid breaths. "We shouldn't have gone somewhere this packed, we need to get this crowd out of here."

"So where do we go now?" Phoenix asks, struggling to keep up.

"Any place we go, Ziegler will follow us and he'll send Zephyr after us. What we need to do is subdue Zephyr now. We go with the original plan," Kamala says.

"We can lead him to the warehouse, it's not far from here," Phoenix suggests.

The white and red train pulls into the station as the crowd panics, scurrying away from the towering werewolf who tears through the crowd toward the familiar scent of Kamala's flowery fragrance.

"Looks like he's still on our tails," Phoenix says as someone crashes into his wide shoulders.

"Really could use that cannon right about now," Aarden says, standing behind Phoenix to avoid being trampled. Phoenix pushes Aarden and Quinn into the train as the doors slide open, causing them to topple over one another.

Kamala steadies her hands before her, tearing apart the tile wall with bursts of energy in one hand while pushing the crowd away with the other.

"Fuck! I can't get a clear shot!" Kamala says to Phoenix, who tries as well, each sending bursts of fire and crystal at the werewolf, preventing him from biting at the strangers who run past him up the steps.

"Everything down here is fucking metal, magnets and electricity," Kamala says, "I can't risk doing this much longer!"

"Then get this crowd out of my way!" Phoenix shouts.

Aarden rises from the floor of the train, tapping on the glass while trying to pry the doors open. On the platform, Phoenix lifts metal bins, sending them crashing into Zephyr's head. The werewolf shakes off the pain and growls at the lion, who shrugs at Kamala.

"Phoenix, clear the train!" Kamala says, drawing from the energy around her to fire a series of blasts at the werewolf.

"On it," the lion says after Zephyr tears off the sleeve of his black jacket, cutting a deep gash across his arm.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if I could please have your attention!" Phoenix yells to a frightened crowd as he leaps into the rail car through the sliding doors, tearing off a strip of his shirt with his teeth.

"If you could all please exit this subway, or whatever strange word you must have for trains, it would be greatly appreciated. Nothing to see here, we're on Zenith business."

The crowd heckles at Phoenix, tossing garbage at him while they witness the battle ensuing on the platform, collectively gasping and cheering as Kamala hides behind a shield of crystal from Zephyr's claws.

Phoenix steps back onto the platform as the train begins to move. "They're not coming off!"

Kamala magnetically pulls the doors of the train apart, pulling every metal item from inside of the car onto the platform.

"They will now!" She growls.

Kamala manages to push Zephyr back far enough with a clear shot to his chest before the crowd spills into the station toward Phoenix, toppling him over. He falls back as the train gains speed.

Aarden runs toward them against the speeding train, trying to force the doors open as the others race to catch up to him. Kamala forces another set of doors apart, leaping through as they run out of station.

"We left Phoenix behind!" Aarden shouts over the squeal of the wheels on the tracks. On the platform, Phoenix runs as fast as he can, his expression frantic as he races to catch up to the speeding train. With no platform left, Phoenix leaps, holding onto the steel with his claws.

Zephyr bolts after the lion, following the scent of blood spilling from his makeshift bandage. The werewolf shatters the tile ground with his weight as he leaps from the edge of the platform and onto the train, burying his claws into steel as he clings to the side of the doors as Kamala grabs Phoenix's muscular body to pull him inside.

Zephyr catches up, biting into Phoenix's leg with his powerful jaws as the lion tries to kick him off with his other leg, pressing his boot into the space between Zephyr's eyes.

Kamala secures herself to the stanchion by crystallizing the metal. She struggles to hold onto Phoenix with all her strength, trying to prevent Zephyr from pulling the lion off the train and onto the tracks.

"Phoenix! I'm going to let go of your hand for a moment. Hold onto something when you call back!"

The lion shakes his head. "You better not!"

"Sorry!"

Kamala yells for the remaining passengers to move aside as she shatters a window to launch a blast at Zephyr with her other hand, lighting the darkness with pink light as the werewolf tumbles violently onto the steel tracks behind them, fading out of sight.

Phoenix falls back, burying his claws into the floor of the train as Zephyr lets go of him.

They breathe a sigh of relief once Phoenix is safely pulled onto the train.

"That was a close call," Kamala says, examining Phoenix's bleeding leg.

"He nearly tore my fucking leg off!"

"You're bleeding pretty bad there, we're--

Something pushes the train, throwing them violently toward the seats to their sides.

"I think he's back for the rest of you now that he's gotten a taste," Kamala says.

"Been there before," Phoenix responds, growling as he tries to push himself up without putting any weight on his left leg or right arm.

Zephyr leaps in through the back of the train, tearing his way through the steel with his claws as he barrels toward them in the narrow tube.

Kamala launches a blast at the werewolf, who deflects it into the side of the train. Air and sparks rush outward as the entire side of the train scrapes loudly against the concrete walls of the tunnel.

"I could use some help here!" Kamala shouts over the screeching metal as the entire side of the rushing train falls to the tracks behind them.

"This entire thing is just one big tube full of fuel!" Phoenix screams out, "one wrong move and I can derail this thing, or worse!"

"You're right!" Kamala says as Zephyr slashes through her shield, launching them back against metal bars.

"I'm going to try something," an idea sparking in her head.

"Whatever it is, do it now!"

The bright white lights inside the train flicker as Kamala draws from the electromagnetic fields surrounding them. Electricity surges through her body like a conduit as the lights burst, showering the entire train in glass.

Aarden and Quinn hide under metal seats creaking with Zephyr's weight as he stalks toward them.

Kamala pulls Aarden into the barrier as she channels lightning into Zephyr's large body, pressing her palms onto his large back to complete the circuit.

Every muscle on Zephyr's massive body surrenders to the surge of thousands of volts of electricity, causing him to crash onto the center of the train car, nearly shaking the speeding train off its rails.

Arcs of residual electricity crackle, illuminating the train as they travel to the next station in near darkness.

"Why can't my adaptation be as useful as that," Phoenix says as Kamala negates the electricity by flowing it away from the metal and toward herself.

***

Hours later, Kamala pulls down on the heavy chains restraining Zephyr, weighing the iron down by burying shards of crystal into the ground.

"It seems like every day I discover something new I can do," Kamala tells Aarden, who takes the first shift to watch the still unconscious Zephyr inside an old abandoned factory in the outskirts of London.

"I've always wondered, is there any practical use for your adaptation?" Aarden asks, watching Zephyr's chest expand and shrink as he takes huge breaths of rusty air.

"Ironically, I hate it when I shock myself on cheap carpet, or when I'm wearing the wrong jacket on my coat. Of all the things I can do, eliminating the static off my fur has been the most practical. So, do you think you can really time travel?"

"I must've, but I have no idea how I accomplished it. I don't feel any different. Can you feel it, when you use your adaptation?"

Kamala thinks.

"That's impossible to say. I don't know what it's like to not feel this way. Kyran didn't seem to like it when we took his adaptation away though. So you really think he's still alive, just different?"

Aarden nods.

"Well, not different. He's just not the same Kyran we know. This one has never met Quinn before, so her existence will come as a surprise to him."

"How are things between you two," Kamala says as they both glance over to Quinn.

"I'm relieved to see her, but she also left us," Aarden says.

Kamala glances deeply at Zephyr, trying to decipher the face she once knew within the beast.

"Trust me on this one Aarden, what's more important is that she came back."

Aarden glances up at the holes in the rusted roof, feeling the night air spill onto them.

"I don't know what to say to her. Every time she looks at me, it's like she expects me to say something important."

"She's adjusting to change, we all are. She's alone in more ways than one, you know. She's now the only normal one and Singh made her choice not to join us."

"Did you really meet her down there?"

Kamala nods.

"Why did she choose Ziegler?"

"She told me there's no sides to this fight, and the most frustrating thing about that, is that she's right. I'm just way too stubborn to admit it," Kamala says, shivering as the cold night air spills in through the holes in the torn ceiling.

"All my life I wanted some sort of excitement, but now all I want to do was get away from this," Aarden admits.

Kamala looks at Zephyr, who snores loudly as he sleeps, wondering if he's still capable of dreaming.

"I know what that feels like. All I wanted to do is run away and be with Zephyr, but all he wanted to do is be a hero."

Aarden and Kamala continue to share secrets until they're stopped by a cloud of black smoke materializing noiselessly from the corner of the room.

"Stay back!" Kamala warns them as violet, lilac and amber eyes shine in the green rays of dawn.

"What are you going to do, shoot me?" Kyran asks as he cleans his glasses.

"I told you they don't trust us," Indigo tells Fletcher, who smiles nervously at them as she waves.

"It's not that--

"Is that Zephyr?" Kyran asks, staring at the snoring werewolf from a safe distance.

"I knew you're telling the truth," Indigo tells Kamala, getting closer than Kyran dares to Zephyr, trying to read his fractured mind.

Phoenix fights against the pain and sleep as he hops on one leg, pulling Indigo away as Zephyr stirs, growling.

"Don't go near him."

"I can take care of myself, Phoenix."

"No, you can't. Please, do the thing you do to see for yourself, in my head."

Indigo looks up into Phoenix's eyes, knowing they're not the same ones that glared an inferno into them only a few nights ago.

"You know it doesn't work that way. I can only see your memories of me. I can't see what your Indigo has been through. The Indigo you know is gone, and I'd rather not know how you lost them, but I'm sure you did everything you could to protect them. Please understand they're not me. The same way you're not the Phoenix I know."

"At least up to a certain point," Kyran says.

"Which we'll never know," Indigo echoes.

"Unless we talk about it," Aarden suggests, sitting up against the corrugated iron.

"Getting you all to talk it out was one of the hardest things I had to teach you to do, but it works," Fletcher says, examining Phoenix's wounds.

"Fletcher is right. We sit here, and we talk about it. If the experiences are shared across timelines, we'll know and start from there. If not, it's due to a ripple in the timeline. But the only way we can figure this out is if we sit here right now and talk about it, and it starts with this. Kyran and Indigo, this is Quinn," Aarden says.

Kyran and Indigo shake the hands of a stranger from another time, but she knows exactly who they are.

"Okay, let's talk."

"Where do we start?" Kamala asks.

"The painting?" Phoenix suggests as Fletcher injects a sedative into his leg.

"I still think about that to this day," Kyran says, "thanks for reminding me."

"You're welcome. How about that one night in Portland?"

"We promised to never talk about that."

Phoenix can't help but to smile, his chest swelling at the hope that the Kyran who sits before him is somehow still his brother.

"Portland? That sounds like fun. Please tell me you don't remember the ugly sweater," Indigo says.

"Oh, we remember the ugly sweater," Kamala says, as even Kyran laughs a bit, "and how you shook your bunny butt while wearing it and nothing else the night you first tried eggnog."

Hours later, after a night of tales and tears. Kyran, Kamala and Aarden watch over Zephyr together as the others board the Cepheus with Fletcher.

"Somehow you managed to get a hold of him. I thought that would be the hard part," Kyran says.

"Now we just need to figure out what to do with him," Aarden says.

"Indigo can get a hold of him if I shoot the cannon," Kamala says.

"We just need the cannon," Aarden reminds her.

"Which means going back into that lab and taking it from Ziegler?" Kamala asks, hoping she would never have to step foot into that lab again.

"Or have him come to us. He knows we have Zephyr, and he thinks we have the Zenith Crown," Kyran says, pulling a small black journal from his jacket pocket, Thaddeus's initials stamped to the front of it in golden ink.

"I did my research," Kyran says, proud to have done something rebellious for once. "I thought about what Phoenix said, about reading through the journals, and I figured, why not?"

Kamala smiles at him until the joy inside of her is overcome with the tragic realization that this Kyran hasn't experienced the pain the brother she knew has, or that their Kyran won't be able to meet Zephyr again.

"So, we have a plan," Aarden says, understanding why a single tear falls from Kamala's sapphire eyes.